Every day, you see stories wailing about the death of journalism, about newspapers shedding jobs or closing their doors.

So is journalism dead? Or is it a phoenix, dwindling close to the end of its life points only to come back bigger, faster and stronger?

The rise of citizen-journalists

A big part of the revival of journalism will involve citizen-journalists. Billions of people around the world are now portable news production studios, with every iPhone and Droid giving them the power to shoot photos or video and share breaking news with the world.

The negative side of this trend is quality control. Journalists have editors. There’s no editing involved with hitting the share button on your phone, leading to the very possibility of words, photos and video that simply stink up the joint, and wouldn’t have seen the light of day at a newspaper or TV station. Continue reading →

For a pop song on the radios, though, it’s not bad. And as a video, the visuals are interesting. They hopped on some kind of metal tube full of explosives, used time lapse photography pretty well and flew back home to get it on with Final Cut Pro or whatever. And it works out fine.

I salute you, Karmin from Nebraska, and hope you keep on trying new things in Music Land. (Note: Her name is actually Amy, and she and the other main guy are from Boston, so the line she said about being from Nebraska is just literary license and such.)

You’ve been there: sitting in a dark theater for two hours, with sticky unknown substances on the soles of your shoes and your wallet $23 lighter, and you’re thinking, “If the director and the seven different screenwriters given credit for this movie had spent FIVE MINUTES on the major plot holes in this stinker, it would’ve been a fine movie.”

All true.

This is why the folks at How It Should Have Ended have jobs.

Here are my favorites, and these are movies that I actually love (except for SPIDERMAN 3).

Big honking bonus: A recurring thing is cutting to Batman and Superman, sitting in a cafe while sipping coffee and talking smack about these movies and each other. I like it, I love it, I want some more of it.

How It Should Have Ended: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

How It Should Have Ended: THE DARK KNIGHT

How It Should Have Ended: THE AVENGERS

How It Should Have Ended: SPIDERMAN 3

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Guy Bergstrom. Photo by Suhyoon Cho.

Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that won some award (PNWA 2013). Represented by Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.